Dates for Leadership Retreat

Two options I'm pondering:

Sept 26-28: We leave Friday night and get back early Sunday
Sept 27-28: Leave late Saturday afternoon (around 5pm) and return late Sunday evening.

I know that if we go with the first option I'm gonna have to miss most of Saturday because of the football game I'm supposed to go to. Going with the second option would make us busy bees during retreat, but the people going to this retreat will most likely be DAC veterans who won't mind a short and busy period of time. People can always leave to go to retreat earlier if they'd like to do one-on-ones or do some sort of bonding. But before I go too far with that, I'm gonna research the policies of the campgrounds Allison suggested.

08-09 CSP signatories

I was thinking of having next year's signatories be Allison, Tiffany, and I. Allison would need signatory status so she can handle finance stuff without hassle; Tiffany so she can reserve rooms for events without bringing someone else along to do it with her; and me because I reserve rooms for membership meetings, handle finance stuff time-to-time, and represent DAC to the UCLA administration.

What do you all think about this? I'll be making a decision by 8/15.

Tabling thoughts

Hey guys,

I just wanted to include a quick run-down of what Ashish and I have discussed so far with regard to publicity/tabling for next year so that you are all in the loop. He and I will keep talking over the course of the summer and take into consideration all of your comments, suggestions, ect.


-when is the best time to use tabling? do we want to push at the beginning of the quarters to make sure that DAC has a face on campus, and then pause around weeks 3 and 4 for midterms, and then push again, and then stop around finals?
-do we want people on bruin walk as often as possible to make sure we're out there, or does it reach a point of plateau where people just stop listening because they're so used to us being there. basically, do we want to use tabling just to push events or as a constant thing?
-we need a way to spice up tabling to make it more enjoyable for the people tabling and make other people more likely to stop and listen
-this ties in closely to the point before: we need to find a way to get people to sign up for tabling. because we've had quite a bit of trouble with that in the past.
-also, is Ashish going to be the tabling coordinator for DAC as well as STAND at ucla? he's open to the idea but we'd have to hash out details ect....it's something we should discuss as a board, so post your comments about how you think we should intertwine DAC tabling and STAND tabling here!


thanks guys.

Finance Committee

Some ideas for fundraising are:

(1) Eco-cell: This is a cell phone recycling program where we would collect used phones on campus and send them into Eco-cell. Depending on the quality of the phone, we could get between 45 cents and $15; the average phone is about $4.

(2) Alumni Newsletter: This would be an effort between Finance and the new Alumni Coordinator, if that amendment passes. It would be to inform alumni of DAC events, connect us with resources they may have, and also to receive donations. We can add a section with current events or topics that fit into our objectives

(3) Barcopa: This is a bar in Santa Monica that DAC has worked with in the past. Two years ago, $1500 was raised in one night and went towards International Medical Corp (or something like that).

(4) TV Tapings: This would really just to get some quick, guaranteed funds when needed.

So none of these really fit well into the objectives, but they can be used to raise money for activities that fit into the objectives.

EPC Projects 08-09

FALL QUARTER
- See Genocide Awareness Month.
WINTER QUARTER
- Massive Sit-in during Winter Quarter

PEACE &LOVE!
Tiff

DAC involvement in GAM

Hola loves.

So, Event Programming Committee (EPC; Zohreh and I, lol) have decided to do Darfur and All-Sudan awareness days.

GAM should take place in November except for one event in the last week of October. Tentative dates:

Week 5 Oct. 29- Holocaust by JSU
W6 Nov. 4- Darfur by DAC
W6 Nov. 5- All-Sudan by DAC
W7 Nov. - Burma by BCB
W8 Nov. 18- Rwanda by RC
W9 Nov. 25- American Indian by AISA

There's reasoning behind the events and their respective dates. Holocaust, being the most familiar of all genocides to most students, comes first. The Darfur and All-Sudan days are during Election Week, purposely putting the issue in the minds of voters. Same reasoning for Burma in the following week. American Indian is in time for Thanksgiving (AISA does a lot of awareness about historical accuracy of this day). Still, the dates are tentative because we're coordinating with so many groups that have their own programming.

That brings me to question- Should DAC EPC focus on the two awareness days and let STAND coordinate with JSU and AISA? Or should we program and coordinate? Let me know!

And now I present our ideas for Darfur and All-Sudan awareness days. :)

For Darfur, we will have a simulation that is similar to the situation in Darfur refugee camps in order to bring proximity and raise awareness on different aspects of the genocide. The set up will be like Camp Darfur (see: Camp Darfur.) And each tent will feature different aspects of the genocide: refugee situation, history of the conflict, and international response. For example, in the refugee-situation tent, we are moving forward with the idea of bringing a photo exhibition, personal testimonies, work of humanitarian aid groups, and solutions to problems in camps (e.g. solar cooker project). The event might take place in Wilson Plaza, in the afternoon (12-4?).

As for the All-Sudan awareness day, we are educating on the civil war, ongoing struggles to keep the CPA, and their significance for Sudan as a whole, including Darfur, in the daytime activity. How we execute this is still in the works, so any suggestions is welcomed!! In the evening, we want to screen GOD GREW TIRED OF US followed with a panel discussion. This might all be followed up with a community service project/trip, DEPENDING on many things.

Disclaimer: All of these ideas are in Spark Notes (See: the infamous site where high schoolers do not think for themselves) format. For more details, read the up-and-coming EPC blog. :)

PEACE &LOVE!
Tiff

Right now bro!

I agree completely.

Tabling after the first couple of weeks of school really only attracts Robert Hutchins--which is not exactly our goal.

Is there anyway we can get flyers up in the dorms in the first couple of weeks of school? I know it takes awhile to go through ORL but that might be a good way to publicize to freshers.

Also, we should all wear our Darfur shirts as often as possible during fall quarter to show that we have a strong presence. The green shirts are good, but if everyone agreed to those orange "Vote for Darfur" shirts that Rohan suggested, we would definitely not be missed.

Yes!

We need this position. We have lots of resources we can tap into, like Mr. Sterling.

Membership Committee Constitutional Amendment

Label for this discussion is "Alumni Relations Coordinator". President will be making a decision on this amendment on 8/1/2008.

Amendment
An additional position on the Membership Committee will be created: the "Alumni Relations Coordinator". The Alumni Relations Coordinator (hereafter referred to as the ARC) is responsible for maintaining DAC's relations with its alumni membership.

Legislative notes:
-This person can ensure that DAC can benefit from the professional resources alumni DAC members can provide to us.
-This person would be responsible for keeping alumni DAC members in the loop on DAC's activities, and also to encourage participation from DAC's alumni in DAC's activities.

Let me know what you think! I'm open to giving this position additional responsibilities as well.

Decision on Amendment

Finance Chair Constitutional Amendment passed. Yay for DAC administration!

We've reached consensus!

Ladies and Gentlemen, DAC's four objective for the 2008-2009 year:

1. Get presidential candidates to promise multilateral diplomacy aimed at achieving a peace agreement for Sudan.

2. Get the next president to address the issue with the US's intelligence deal with Khartoum.

3. Get the next president to pursue a vigorous and multilateral diplomatic effort aimed at achieving a peace agreement based on the fundamentals of the "All-Sudan Solution".

4. If necessary, get 1,000,000 letters signed, which would be addressed to the next president and pledge full support of a NATO solution in the case that all diplomatic options have been exhausted.

DAC Projects for 2008-2009

Label for this discussion is "Projects 08-09".

What projects/campaigns should we do next year to achieve our four chosen objectives?

For your convenience, our 08-09 objectives:

1. Get presidential candidates to promise multilateral diplomacy aimed at achieving a peace agreement for Sudan.
2. Get the next president to address the issue with the US's intelligence deal with Khartoum.
3. Get the next president to pursue a vigorous and multilateral diplomatic effort aimed at achieving a peace agreement based on the fundamentals of the "All-Sudan Solution".
4. If necessary, get 1,000,000 letters signed, which would be addressed to the next president and pledge full support of a NATO solution in the case that all diplomatic options have been exhausted.

Don't forget to label your post!

Publicity and a Role for Tabling

Label for this discussion is "Publicity and a Role for Tabling".

I've found tabling to be an inefficient tool of publicizing DAC's activities and promoting its advocacy campaigns. However, it is a very good tool when it comes to promoting our visibility on campus, and it is true that without tabling some students will forget that we exist (I've come to learn that Facebook cannot solve this problem, so without tabling, we only exist in virtual reality).

My suggestions for publicity:

-For tabling, volunteers simply make themselves available at the table and take idle time to get homework done. Hopefully this will give incentive for people to make the commitment to table, knowing they can get homework done while they're there. If anyone approaches the table, the volunteer can ask them to sign up for the mailing list, sign the letters, hand them flyers, and answer any questions they might have about the situation in Darfur or DAC. It's my belief that there are too many distractions for students passing through Bruinwalk to lend meaningful attention to our cause and too many ways for them to ignore volunteers and the message they're trying to send. Even going door-to-door to get letters signed and pass out flyers is more efficient than tabling, since you're actually engaging individuals. Tabling may give passers-by some DAC facetime, which is valuable, but that facetime is interferred with by the numerous Bruinwalk distractions, the deadliest one being the iPod/iPhone.

-There are other, better tools we can use to publicize. Putting out flyers on classroom desks (in the reliable, early morning, and only in the early morning) before classes ensures that the flyers reach more students. Classroom announcements also captivate the student audience's attention. Chalking also works well in grabbing the attention of students who are bored in lecture. Row walking, when done right, works very well for getting letters signed. Also, showing up to student group meetings to get letters signed is effective as well, especially when you grab their attention with an announcement about the letter's content. We may want to focus much more attention to organizing with these tactics rather than tabling.

I'd like to reiterate that I don't think this means we should do away with tabling, not at all. I just think we can use tabling for the purpose of DAC's visibility more than anything else, but it's not the best tactic for successfully advocating for a cause or promoting events. The other tactics I discussed are a little more difficult to organize with, but they yield much greater gains than tabling. For instance, I hear people compliment us on our events' visibility in the classrooms a lot, but I never hear the same thing with regards to Bruinwalk.

Let us know what you think!

Constitutional amendment: Finance Chair duties

Proposal open for discussion until this Sunday, 7/20. On 7/20, the President will decide whether to pass the proposed amendment. Label for this discussion is "Finance Chair Constitutional Amendment".

The Finance Chair, in the case where both the President and Vice President are not able to fulfill presidential responsibilities simultaneously, will serve in the position of President until either the Vice President or President is able to return to fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities.

Legislative Notes:

-As already noted in the constitution, if the Vice President is able to fulfill presidential responsibilities while the President is not, the Vice President must serve in the position of President until the President is able to return to his/her constitutional responsibilities.

Reasoning:

-Because the Finance Chair is the Board member most familiar with the internal workings and fiduciary responsibilities, this person is most qualified to step in, temporarily, to run DAC's administration.
-Allison says she can serve in this capacity should we need her to.

San Clemente

Correction: the campground by the beach is in San Clemente, not San Juan Capistrano. And there are campgrounds 1/4 mile from the beach as well. But we would have to reserve in advance to get on that close to the shore.

Clarification of NATO objective (#4)

In response to Zohreh's comment, all I can say is that this is an air campaign involving all the member nations of NATO, which is the purpose of NATO's charter. It is like the campaign in Kosovo in that very vague sense, and I don't know anything more than that. The basic idea for this objective is that we would show our support for NATO's involvement if that is our last option (meaning that ALL diplomatic options have been exhausted and we have no choice but to use force against perpetrators of war crimes in order to create conditions conducive to the signing of a long term peace agreement).

Retreat

Camping sounds fun! There is a good campground down in San Juan Capistrano that is about 1 mile off of the shore. I also know of a campground 30 minutes north of UCLA. We would have to hike a few miles to reach it but the hike is not strenuous. Definitely no more than one hour. This one is nice because it is pitch black and the sky is illuminated by stars.

Retreat at my house may be possible, but there will be no alcohol allowed. It doesn't matter to me either way.

Four objectives!

One goal and four objectives sound excellent to me.

Genocide Awareness Month, by STAND

The label for this is "Genocide Awareness Month".

STAND E-Board was thinking about doing a Genocide Awareness Month with the participation of all three of its groups (Bruin Campaign for Burma, Darfur Action Committee, and Rwanda Coalition). We were thinking about highlighting the American Indian Genocide, Holocaust, Burma, Rwanda, and Darfur over five weeks (one event per week). We'd like to do this in November and December, so this can be our big beginning-of-the-year event and can help all three clubs boost their memberships.

Would you all be interested in having DAC participate in this? To be clear, DAC would most likely have to take on most of the burden in programming this since it has the biggest membership out of all the STAND groups. We can discuss how we should share the burden.

Also, if you have suggestions for this, please feel free to post them.

Genoc

One Goal. Four Objectives.

After our discussions and collective research, I am suggesting that since we seem to agree that our goal is to reach a peace agreement based on the fundamentals of the All-Sudan Solution we should settle on pursuing these four political objectives next school year:

1. Raising awareness of and properly addressing the US intel deal with Khartoum ("properly addressing" means either we keep it going provided we seriously pursue a peace agreement in Sudan or we break the deal).
2. Get US presidential candidates to promise multilateral diplomacy in Sudan
3. Get the next US president to send full-time diplomatic staff to q'tet countries and Sudan
4. If necessary, send 1,000,000 signed letters, addressed to the next president, that state full support of a NATO solution in the case that all diplomatic options have been exhausted. a NATO solution would entail an air campaign in which all NATO member-states participate, and diplomatic efforts aimed at achieving a peace agreement would resume following this campaign.

Let me know what you think. I'd like to finalize our decision on our political objectives by the end of this week.

Leadership Retreat Discussion

The label for this discussion is "Leadership Retreat".

I'm looking to hold a Leadership Retreat on the weekend before Week 1 of Fall Quarter (9/26-28). Is this something everyone would be interested in doing? If so, what would you like to have accomplished at the retreat? Lastly, if you have a house that can hold at least ten people (you decide if they can be drunk or not) and would be willing to offer it up for this retreat, you would be loved forever.... Of course, I'm open to other ideas as well as far as where to do this (camping trip?).

Please reply this post with your thoughts on the two questions posed. Thanks!

Ensuring Action in Worst Case Scenario

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful posts! Let's continue trying to formulate this objective, because it will be guiding everything we'll be doing for the rest of the year.

So what happens if the Khartoum government absolutely refuses to sign an "All-Sudan" peace deal, and no reasonable incentive can persuade them not to do this? This is not at all an impossible scenario. Luis Moreno-Ocampo has currently been conducting a very intense investigation into war crimes commited in the region, and his investigation seems to keep uncovering more potential perpetrators eligible for prosecution. Mounting criminal evidence against members of the Khartoum government would most likely cause the government to outright refuse any offer to sign a peace deal that necessarily includes a provision that criminal investigations will be completed in full and perpetrators will be prosecuted by the Hague. It is possible that all parties will be receiving a hand full of get-out-of-jail-free cards in any case (or will have to settle for national expulsion) for the sake of getting a peace deal signed, but we know that the UN has already decided that a handful of higher up officials will be prosecuted if successfully arrested. But ultimately the corruption in Sudan's power structure may prove to be too great to let go, and if this is the case, it puts a peace agreement with Sudan's current ruling regime in danger.

John Prendergast has suggested that the US, China, France, and all other NATO countries get ready to take military action in Sudan in case a peace agreement looks too far out of reach. Assuming this is the right solution to the problem (which I happen to agree with), our goal then needs to be to have the presidential candidates make the voters perceive that they are serious about doing something in Darfur, without mentioning the possibility of a NATO campaign (because with a war-weary America, that just sounds scary) and without having them walk themselves in the trap of promising something less that will actually not work but sure sounds like a serious measure of diplomacy (such as the promise of a no-fly zone or more "heavy" sanctions). Candidates can instead keep to the message that vigorous diplomacy needs to be pursued in Sudan, and when it comes to keeping them from walking into a trap of bad promises, we can make sure that STAND's "Ask the Candidates" campaign doesn't ask moderators to question candidates on what will happen if a peace agreement fails. Also, the more often we are able to get the candidates to repeat their promise of pursuing a diplomatic solution in Sudan, the more they'll get the right political message across and the more political capital they'll earn for themselves to spend on Darfur.

To be sure, a military intervention would not be the last action we'd take in Sudan, because our goal would still be to pursue a peace agreement after that, but in this case we would hopefully have the opportunity to prosecute the perpetrators.